


Death Sentence

by Kuronrko98



Series: Maladaptive Daydreaming Work: The Cube and Related Universes [10]
Category: Escape from Furnace - Alexander Gordon Smith
Genre: Brainwashing, Death Threats, Dehydration, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, General Unreality, If I missed anything or you want anything specific tagged, Memory Loss, connor does at least one meme, do not copy to another site, please let me know!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 12:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuronrko98/pseuds/Kuronrko98
Summary: Everything is going wrong. Sawyer is starting to lose their mind with a voice in their head and Connor struggles not to go against Cross's stipulations. No one is safe as more questions pile up with no answers.





	1. Away

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

I was doing something.

I think I was mad. Weird thought, but it rises out of the abyss of my memory when I push hard enough. Nothing follows, just the knowledge that I was mad.

A voice echoes, too distant for me to really hear. It registers as almost familiar, but even that slips away. I don’t…

What was I doing?

I only realize my face is there when it scrunches. I don’t know why thinking makes that happen, but there it is. The thought almost falls away again, but the fact that my face remains scrunched up keeps the echo of the realization around.

If I have a face, then I should be able to—

My eyes flick open.

Red light colors the starry smears of sleep. I have to buffer for a few seconds before I remember that red light is bad. Something stirs in my chest at that, but I can’t, uh. I can’t get myself to care enough.

My gaze slides to the side and the fear absolutely wakes me up this time.

I don’t know his name, but I recognize him. Him, that’s what I was mad about. He wants to kill me. Or. Or. Or no, he wants to kill someone else.

His smile spreads in slow motion. Wait, was the smile already there? I don’t know what’s real, and my head won’t stop spinning.

“Still fighting?”

My hands snap up and pull against some kind of bindings without my permission. The memory fits into a slot that I can think about a step behind my body.

Cross.

Cross wants to _destroy_ Sawyer.

I try to summon the horror I know I should feel at that, but it doesn’t come. The whispering, tired hush of whatever has me so tired keeps everything muted. Even that spike of fear my first sight of Cross gave me has crumbled into mild irritation at being woken.

“I’d thought my warning would be incentive enough to keep you in check,” Cross continues, recapturing my attention. “But you just won’t let go.”

“Blue.” I realize distantly that that’s a little vague, but I can’t bring myself to specify. It’s hard to wrap my mouth around these words, but I think I get it out with a minimum of slurs. “Makes me forget to forget.”

I blink, and he teleports closer to my bed. Or maybe I lost a little time. With how tired I am, I wouldn’t be surprised. He leans a little closer now that I’m present again and doesn’t give away just how long I drifted off for. His eyes narrow a fraction, and I miss the grin the second it’s replaced by a bland and calculating look.

I don’t like this guy at all.

“Interesting.” He straightens up and studies the bags of nectar hung at my bedside. “I have several questions for you.”

I groan and try to wiggle away. Obviously, I don’t get anywhere because I’m on a cot and my wrists are bound. Cross sighs.

“You may rest when you’ve answered them all,” he assures me. I sag with relief, and the smile has returned to his voice if not his actual face. “Good. Why keep fighting if you don’t remember what you fight for?”

I try to shrug, but between my unfortunate captive state and being drugged to hell and back I have some trouble with it. “Never said that. Forgetting your—you said warning but obvious threat, my dude—’s not the same as forgetting the whys and the… uh.”

Somewhere in there, my eyes closed and I don’t even know what I’m saying. Ugh, what’s the point in this? He could ask me when I wake up all the way. An uneasiness builds in my gut at the mere thought of the point of these questions, but—

Cross snaps his fingers and I startle awake.

“Focus. Why are you still fighting the nectar?”

The complacency of the blue nectar smothers the spark of irritation the same way it did the fear. But _I_ know it was there, and that’s all I really need. I turn my head away from him with a grunt.

He reaches through the nectar connection—confirmation that, yes, this is nectar and, yes, he can get in my head like that—to urge me on. It’s much more compelling than anything he could actually say, so I flop my head back around to face him. My stomach twists, but I honestly can’t see any reason not to give him what he wants if he’ll let me go back to sleep in return.

“They wouldn’t want me to give up just because you said so,” I mutter.

“Perry?” he asks sharply.

I hum an assent. “And Jay would kill me, wouldn’t they? Can’t let them think I didn’t try.”

He says something, quiet enough I think he might be done with me. I close my eyes, but a sharp clap rouses me before I can even try to sleep. I blink bleary eyes at Cross, who glares daggers at me.

“Pay attention.”

“‘S your fault, though.” I sigh and do my best to wave airily at him with my wrist bound to the cot. “What do you want?”

I bite my tongue to keep from asking why he hasn’t killed me yet. He might actually do that, so I’d better not.

“Do you remember your name?”  

“Of course,” I answer automatically. When I try to find it in my head, though, it doesn’t rise up so readily. “Or, uh. No. Shut up.”

That same ‘you’re doing something wrong’ feeling returns, but Cross’s voice demands my attention. He doesn’t get on my case about closing my eyes this time, so I give him the courtesy of actually listening to him.

“Who were you traveling with?”

“Sawyer and Dominic.” Something pangs in my chest and I stop. “Something happened to them, didn’t it?”

“Anyone else?” he cuts in.

I frown and try to remember.

“Donovan and Simon.” I pause and it takes me a second to dredge the rest of them up. It isn’t hard to rattle them off once I do, though. “Alex, Zee, Kevin, and, gross, Gary. I think we had some constructs and—oh.”

I raise my head and open my eyes to find Cross watching me. The blue galaxies floating in the large syringe he holds aren’t enough to distract me. Not from this.

“Gamzee. Dominic died to kill him.” I try to make eye contact with him, but my eyes only slide away as always. “My name is Connor Sawyer.”

My head drops back down and I stare into the terrible red light. I know he’s going to put me under again. The blue nectar must be wearing off, though the hollow feeling in my gut might try to convince me otherwise. I don’t long for sleep quite so much anymore.

I hope I remember this the next time I wake up. Maybe I won’t be so eager to answer his questions if I remember how much this new nectar can twist my motivations.

“Disappointing results,” Cross declares. “The screening room, then, when your eyes recover from the first surgery.”

My whole body seizes, the speed at which the horror races up my spine is too much of a shock after the dullness of the blue nectar. Silver eyes. Cotton coverings. Soon, he’ll turn me into one of his soldiers and there’s little I can do about it.

My last thought is a wish to go home, as the nectar drains both my fear and all of my will to fight.

~-S-~

“It was reckless.”

I remain silent and take a long drink of water. I doubt my punishment will be an easy one. Anything I say now will probably just make it worse, so I keep my head down rather than look back at him.

“The inmates escaped under your watch. You ignored a direct order. Your flight put the compound in danger.” He uses the nectar to speak beneath his words while he paces the office behind me. **_Your actions make me wonder what your true intentions are._ **

I freeze.

“I am left with the question of just how far you have fallen.” **_Did you allow them to leave?_ **

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I hiss, then smother any further argument under another drink. _Why would I go after them if I had let them escape?_

 ** _It is possible you intended to join them._** He rounds the desk and glares down at me. “If I believed that, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”

There’s a burst of static, and I barely manage to suppress a flinch. The presence behind me has returned, possibly at the worst time imaginable. If it weren’t for the cup in my hand, I doubt I would be able to keep my nails from digging into the flesh of both palms.

“If you think I’m such a risk, why am I still alive?” I growl into the metal. _I want them_ dead _, Cross. I’d rather that than have them get away again._

“ _C̶ro̷ss—_ ”

“Father is under the impression you can still be saved,” he says with a wave at the rotary phone on his desk. **_You have always been a liar. I am not so deluded as to believe you’ve changed that much. What are you hiding from me?_ **

_Nothing I can’t handle!_ I slam the cup on the desk and rise to my feet. “It wouldn’t be the first time you disobeyed his orders. If I’m such a traitor, kill me now!”

“ _—a͝l̢w̕ays͞—_ ”

“Do not tempt me.” He steps closer, close enough I wouldn’t have time to escape if he were to try. **_That arrogance again. Tell me._ **

_I can’t._ “If I’m a liability and I can’t see it, it would be the only way to make sure I don’t ruin Dr. Furnace’s work.”

“ _—l̵ies҉._ ”

He rams so violently against the nectar wall in my mind that I can’t hear what he says. Only my inability to breathe actually tells me he has me by my throat. The static grows stronger, too much to bear.

I pushed too far.

The static cuts out and I crumple to the floor with a hand clutched to my throat. I stare at the uneven cut of the floor, the red dust on Cross’s shoes.

The static returns, softer now, and a weight lands on my shoulder. “ _W̨ha̶t d͟o͝ y̧ou͟ ̶rememb͝er ̴fr̶om y͢o̡u͝r̡ t̶ime̢ awa̕y̴?̨_ ” it asks in an overlapped murmur.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know _what?_ ” Cross demands. He pulls me to my feet by my shirt and drags me out of the room. I just shake my head, to which he snarls. “Screening room. Three days. Stay away from the escaped inmates.”

“Of course.” I lower my head and follow easily enough he releases my arm.

A few seconds ago, I thought he was going to kill me, and now I get the mercy of a few days in the screening room? I don’t know where this is coming from, but it’s not what I expected from Cross. I shouldn’t risk him changing his mind.

As we approach, when I see the door to the screening room, dread settles in my gut. My heart stutters, and I stop dead in the middle of the hall. I can’t explain it, the sudden fear, but it leaves me frozen.

Cross opens the door up ahead and glances back, surprise raising his brows when he sees me. I know I need to start walking. I deserve this, and the screening room isn’t a terrible punishment. I scream at myself to move, but my body won’t respond.

Cross says something, but I don’t hear.

“ _E͜ve͞ry͏t̷h͡ing w̧ill͞ be͡ fine͘._ ”

The fear disappears, the unexplained panic, and I start as if coming out of a trance. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. The presence, back again so soon, seems to grasp my hand and lead me forward.

“ _Yo̷u'r͜e k̵̨̕͏k̴̡̢҉k̕ķ̸̵̸ al͜w͟ay̢s̶ ̢fin͘e̡, ͏reme͟mb̷ęr?_ ”

Cross studies me as I approach. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t know what his gaze holds as I avert my eyes.

I’ve already taken a seat in front of the screen when the door closes and drops the room into darkness. Cross is talking, something about the hole, something about my work. I nod numbly and stare at the blank screen.

My wrists are strapped to the arms of the chair, my eyes pinned, my head fixed forward. Cross works with an IV for a moment, hooking it into my arm. The projector is running, a clip of wartime destruction filling my blurred vision.

I’m already slipping into the effects of the nectar when the hold on my hand grows tighter. I hear myself call out to Cross when the door opens behind me.

“W͜ar͡d͏e̕n.” I don’t hear his response, and I only hear myself through the fog of film and nectar. “You̧ b̧a͢st͟a̧r̵d—fuck—we'l͢l͢ w͘in̕. I̵n ̨t͢h̴ę ͢end, we ̡wiļl ̨w͞įn.”

The words slip away, blurring together as the videos on the screen burrow into me. They become everything, the only thing I know until even the prison is a distant memory.


	2. The Feeling That Everything’s Been Moved Slightly to the Left but No One Else Mentions it so You Pretend it isn’t Happening

~-S-~

I come to in a dark room, still strapped to the chair with a splitting headache. The fact I can open my eyes—that they were closed in the first place—is the first sign something’s gone wrong. My struggle to force rubber muscles to lift my head is the next, and I fail anyway. The films have been shut off, the screening room silent save for the sound of breathing.

I’m not alone.

“Ah, shit, they’re waking up,” a voice hisses behind me. “You said—”  

“Eighteen to thirty-six ain’t a small range.” The second voice moves until the quality of darkness in front of me changes. “Hey, you know where you are?”

I groan something that’s too many consonants, and the shadow shifts. The two voices confer while I gather myself. The darkness isn’t receding no matter how much I try to blink it away. I settle with just closing my eyes against it instead.

Okay, answer the question.

The dark room has to be a screening room. Unless there’s a plan to have me killed—which I can’t really rule out—that’s the only option. So, a screening room with the films shut off. Cross must have sent the soldiers to come drag me out instead of doing it himself.

Makes sense. Perfect sense.

But this is wrong. They should have brought me back to my quarters, out of this room long before my sense had a chance to return. I should feel better, more secure. If anything, I feel worse.

“ _Giv̛ę ̵it̨ ̢tim͘e̴._ ”

And that’s still here.

I finally manage to lift my head and the conversation behind me cuts off. I blink my eyes open just in time for the lights to come on and nearly blind me. I hiss a wince and the spike in my skull drives in deeper.

I don’t notice my arms have been freed until a metal cup gets pressed into my hand. I squint at it, then at the identical soldiers looming shoulder to shoulder in front of me.

“Explain,” I mutter before taking a tentative sip. It awakens a visceral thirst in my throat, and the last drops of water trickle out without quenching it.

“Got orders to pull you out ahead of schedule,” one says. “Nothing really to explain.”

“Orders.”  I straighten up and finally turn my eyes on the two of them. They nod as one. One of them glances at the door. “To release me from the screening rooms early.”

They nod again, and I absolutely don’t believe them.

“How early?” I ask innocently.

Neither of them answer.

No matter how much I pester them over the next hour or so of them herding me back to the lab, they don’t tell me how long I was in there. Even asking about the escapees’ conversion produces nothing. I’m not supposed to be thinking about the new specimens. That evidently includes my access to their progress.

Threatening to rat them out to Cross about the whole thing only earns me twin halfmoon grins. I still don’t think heCross sanctioned this, but I can’t say I would rather still be in the screening room. Besides, would I even be able to articulate what’s wrong here if I did go to Cross?

The look they both wear when they turn to leave is the same as the soldier who let me out. Who ignored Cross’s orders to let me chase the inmates. From the outside, it looks like…

Well, this isn’t a _coup_ , so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

Once I’m alone I make a beeline for the closest sink, stick my head under a faucet, and guzzle a little more water than is probably wise. Three days is much longer than our standard screening time. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last water I had was what Cross gave me in his office.

I would be even less surprised if he was hoping I would die in there.

 _Don’t tempt me_ , he had said when I baited him. He couldn’t have made his disdain more obvious.

I stare out into the lab.

There has to be something I can do.

I wander to one of the doors off the side of the lab, hip checking a few counters on the way there. My depth perception is all off. It takes a few tries to get the door open and stumble into my quarters.

I think it was a storage space before I came back, barely enough room for a cot, the IV stand next to it, and a desk. It’s the desk I’m after, the computer on it, so I gratefully drop into the padded chair and flip it open.

I also take a drink from a cup I must have left here earlier. Room temperature water doesn’t normally do it for me, but it’s a struggle not to drink the whole thing in one go. It makes sense when the computer comes on and tells me it’s been about sixty hours since I last reviewed my files.

Not as long as it could have been, but that still puts me at about two days locked in a room without water after accounting for everything I did that day. The nectar’s probably the only reason I can walk without seeing spots at this point.

I shake my head and scroll through my files. Proposed ideas, idle plans, all of it ends up in this folder. Anything I thought about but haven’t had time to explore. My strength will return with time, I need to focus on how I can fix this.

I pause at one and ponder it. A long shot for sure, but possible. It could protect me from Cross in a pinch, if it isn’t enough to turn him around.

I open the file and get to work. I don’t know how long I’ll have before Cross decides I’m not worth the trouble.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

“You’re lucky I like you.”

I turn my head lazily toward the echo of a voice. The owner shimmers for a moment, amorphous and foggy, then comes into focus. She—no, mental recoil from _that_ says _they_ —sit in the ether what could be a few inches or a few yards away and emits a glow that turns the blue air green.

They’re familiar, eyeing our surroundings with a distasteful grimace, and that’s about as much as I can get before my eyes slip shut again.

“Hey, no, you don’t get to ignore me, it took me too long to find you.” They snap their fingers in front of my nose. I grumble, but open my eyes again. “Good.”

“What do you want?” I ask, though I’m not sure if those are the actual sounds my mouth makes. It’s what I hear, at least, and they seem to understand.

“You sent me.” They roll their eyes while I struggle to keep from falling back asleep. “Well, the part that remembers things, at least.”

“Mhm.”

“I wish you’d told me it was such a mess over here. This stuff’ll take forever to get rid of.” They swipe at the thick air, and it moves like it’s more than it is. Like water, or fog, but it doesn’t…

Ugh, I’m too tired for this.

“Anyway, the message.” They clear their throat and straighten up like there’s actually any concept of direction here. “‘Leave them behind. You can’t save them.’ in those exact words.”

I try to process that. I try to make sense of it as best I can, but it doesn’t fit anywhere. It doesn’t fit.

“Don’t worry too much about it now,” they continue gently. “You’ll remember when you wake up.”

“I don’t want to wake up,” I groan.

“No one does.” They stretch and unfold themself until they’re standing on an invisible surface. “This mess doesn’t help, but you’ll have to wake up eventually.”

“Why?”

They smile and start to fade away. “You’d miss one hell of a show if you stayed here the whole time.”

Once their light fades, I try to process that. It only takes me a few seconds to discard the thought. I’m too tired. The air is still again.

This is where I belong.


	3. In the Meantime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back. Back again. Sawyer's back, tell a friend.
> 
> Anyway, I've been ignoring this project for seven months have the first BF thing I've been proud of writing in almost a year.

~-S-~

**Day One**

Between dehydration and paranoia, I get very little done. I order a few rats to be brought to the lab for a new series of tests, scribble out some vague lists of concentrations and ingredients. Nothing major.

No, not yet.

♥️♥️♥️C♥️♥️♥️

**Day Two**

I can’t shake the disgust that clings to my back.

It was there when the blacksuits wheeled me out of the screening rooms, it crawled along the walls of the infirmary, over the sickening curve of the curtain around my cot, in those precious moments before another bag of nectar hooked into my IV. It held me in its embrace underneath the soft words of encouragement the warden left me in my sleep.

It’s still there now. The glare really doesn’t help.

“Do you expect me to believe you’re being this difficult on _accident?_ ” the warden demands. He’s tense, not sure about what. “That’s impossible.”

“My subconscious really just hates you that much.” It’s half delirium, half genuine spite at his whole whatever. They might have healed faster than should be possible, but the eyes I point my wary gaze at him with aren’t mine. He took mine and probably burned them in the furnace by now. “Your new nectar puts _him_ in charge. He’s _really bad_ at following directions.”

I can’t quite hold a complete thought. On one side, the nectar’s still surface begs me to stop making waves. The other, that slimy, ill feeling dashes any hope of falling into that trap.

“You think so?” He doesn’t look at me anymore, enraptured gaze on a bag of that terrible blue sleep sauce held up in the red light. Or, it would be red. It’s dark enough in here that my brand new eyes turn it into stripes of black and white. “That’s a thought. So predisposed to fight it makes it worse.”

I haven’t been meaning to fight, not with both mine and Sawyer’s lives in the balance. It’s not my fault I just kind of _remember_ every time he wakes me up.

He drops the bag onto a tray with a thoughtful nod. I still hate that he can do that, pick thoughts out of my head. I hate even more that it was what reminded me of Sawyer this time. That same intuition, the same ability now used as an invasion and subjugation.

“A simple enough solution, then.” He raises a hand, attention diverted through a gap in the curtain. “We will see whether you’re of use to me after your next surgery.”

I’m past being afraid of the warden and his surgeries. I hate it so much the nectar moves to smother what would become tears of fury if left unchecked, but I have enough presence of mind just now to escape fear. It’s not the surgeries that scare me.

No.

A wheezer comes in and busies itself in preparations to put me under. Whether the surgery happens now or after a few more hours of marinating, I’m not sure. It won’t make a difference in the end. I’ll become what he wants me to be, just like Sawyer has. 

We all will, and he’ll regret having handed us exactly what we need to destroy him again.

~-S-~

**Day Three**

Either Cross doesn’t know I was removed from the screening rooms early, or he really did order it. I’m not about to bring it up in case of the former and I don’t want him to change his mind if the latter. He hasn’t been in the lab, anyway.

Which is good, because I don’t think he’d approve of this little project.

I have a second one in place, of course. A mix of nectar that leaves the rats tamer while retaining their function. Attacks could be a thing of the past, but that’s just insurance. Something to show Cross if he asks what I’m doing—an excuse to have rats brought to the lab.

I’m far more interested in my first project even if it isn’t going well.

“ _N͘͢͝o͜.͘_ ”

I pull up short before a drop can leave the pipette. “If you have any bright ideas, feel free to share.”

It doesn’t answer, so I let drip the clear fluid into a dish of nectar. I stare longer than necessary before accepting that nothing’s going to happen. It’s not a big deal. I have plenty of time to find the right mixture.

I turn to brainstorm only to find a neatly folded piece of paper weighed down by a bag of nectar. Neither were there before. The beaker of test mixture has been moved to the side carelessly near the edge for such a potentially dangerous solution.

I don’t want to look at the paper. I don’t want to know what it says.

I push the bag to the side and flip the paper open anyway.

> _Aren’t you hungry?_

I narrow my eyes and scan the empty room. I would have heard it if anyone had come in. If they had left.

Besides, it’s an absurd question. I don’t need to _eat_. Nectar gives me all I need. Even if I _wanted_ to, it would only—

The voice laughs, a whisper of echoes enough to make my skin crawl.

I reach for my com but I hesitate to press it. This is risky. I don’t want Cross to be any more suspicious of me than he already is.

Then again, I’m not the only one keeping secrets from him. I press the com and start to drift toward the door to wait. “83, report to the lab.”

I expect the voice to gloat, but it surprises me by disappearing—that cold feeling of their absence out of place in the warm lab—just before the shock doors open. One of the two soldiers who brought me back from the screening room strides in, eyes sharp. He pauses and scans the room before focusing on me from the doorway without a word.

I guess I’m not the only paranoid one back here.

I try to make my request sound as normal as possible. My voice stays firm, no hint of uncertainty. He doesn’t show any sign of judgment, so I have to assume I’m doing well.

He dips his head slightly, but before he turns back he asks, “Anything else?”

“Don’t tell Cross about this.”

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

**Day Five**

“She’s up to something,” the warden muses to himself from atop the stool beside my stretcher. He passes an empty syringe from one hand to another, idle, thoughtful, attention far from me. “She’s covering it well, but there’s something else. Her subjects shouldn’t be dying at this rate.”

I try to ask, to extract even one word from the quicksand in my skull through the gravel my throat’s turned into. He doesn’t need it, in the end. He can answer my question just as well without hearing it.

“Oh, but my problems are far from being yours.” He drops tucks the syringe into his jacket and turns a brilliant, proud grin on me. “And if you have to ask who I’m talking about, it’s just as well.”

I gaze at him. Something feels slimy in the back of my head, a residue I can’t put my finger on. The nectar can’t scrub it clean, hasn’t been able to erase it in however long I’ve been here. It makes me want to squirm, though I keep myself from moving.

Even a small shift would grate against my still-healing arms, after all. He’s turning me into one of the others. I’ve seen them pass through the infirmary before, the giants I’m supposed to be joining when this whole thing is over.

His smile doesn’t waver. I just blink back.

The words come out of my mouth without prompting. Verbally, it’s a growl, though I’m not enough of a fool to think the warden won’t know what I’m saying.

_What could Sawyer possibly be doing without you knowing about it? They’re a little short on real allies right now._

His fury only flickers as a snarl for a moment, the roar on the nectar connection only a blip. It leaves me pressed back against what passes for a pillow around here even in the absence of something so solid as fear. He smooths it out into a tolerant sneer and jerks up to his feet.

“Back to the screening rooms, I should think, until those bandages come off.” He gestures out through the curtain, a familiar motion. I’m not sure how many times I’ve woken or how many times I’ve disappointed him. His lip curls when he looks back to me at the break in the curtain. “Rest assured, that coward will regret it when I find out.”

~-S-~

**Day Seven**

I was expecting it to take weeks, _months_ , to find anything worthwhile. With three words and a laugh, the voice gave me the only ingredient I needed. I’ll worry later about how it could have left a physical note.

For now, I need to make the serum better. It’s not practical for the results to be so violent, or so slow. That’s just asking for trouble.

Really, this is much easier than I thought it would be.

??V??

**Day Nine**

“I wish I could see inside his head,” Virtue— _Virtuoso_ , I mean—murmurs. They stare at the screen, their static eyes trained on Cross. “Even a little bit, just for a second.” 

“You don’t.”

They don’t look at me even if they do tilt their head ever so slightly in my direction. They ask a question without asking it, without it even touching the air of the In-Between. It’s still a question. It’s still there, whether they ask it or not.

“You wouldn’t get any answers.” I flick my own gaze back to the screen, where Cross looms over an unconscious Connor Sawyer. “Seeing the shit in his head won’t make any of this easier.”

The first wheezer digs a knife into Connor’s chest. He’ll feel that when he comes back here. Even if he leaves behind the evidence of what Cross is doing to him, he’ll feel it.

Virtuoso lets out a breath, slow and controlled.

“I know.” Their knuckles turn white where they grip the edges of their light-borne control panel. Static touches their words. “But if I could just see _why—_ ”

“His reasons don’t matter.” I wave my hand through the screen until it flickers and Virtuoso has to look at me. “Don’t forget why we’re here.”

They stare at me, then back to where the screen is already reforming. That shark’s grin covers anything and everything Cross might be hiding. We might never know why he’s playing it this way and we have to get used to that.

They nod at the screen. 

The decision to drop the line of thought has to be hard for them. I know that and I know the current plan will be even harder to act out. We haven’t talked about it. I doubt we will.

I hear their next words before they say them. Tired. Grim. A reminder.

“This will be the last time.”

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

**Day Ten**

A vague inkling tells me this is wrong. A test, a torrent of water and blood. Silver eyes like my own, a thought that brings a smile to my face. It’s what I expect. It leaves me a little disappointed when I open my eyes.

The chains I expect, just not the chair they bind me to. Water, yes, but I thought it would fall from the ceiling and not down the side of a pitcher as condensation. I feel the shape of darkness in the trickle of memory whose source I can’t quite identify.

Instead, there’s a hot office of red stone with an achingly familiar red flag on the wall. A meticulously organized desk sits between me and the warden. He peruses a gathering of file folders and doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’m awake.

Or, that’s what I think until his gaze, verging on bored, raises to me.

“No point in giving you the usual test, is there? I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this is your last chance.” He lifts the open folder in front of him and flips it around. With a harried sort of sigh, he gestures vaguely at it. “Do you know this person?”

I have to crane my neck to see it, what with the chains around my arms and chest and still a stripe of light glare bisects the glossy photo in the corner. I stare blankly at the the profile. It must be an inmate, that’s what the file says at least. Or, _was_ , if the scrawled ‘deceased’ at the bottom means anything.

It’s just a boy with bronze skin, a bruise in heavy relief under whatever poor lighting he was under spanning from the corner of his scowl down past the collar of his shirt. I wonder what happened, since he doesn’t get into fights. Not on purpose, anyway.

Which… is a nonsensical thought. I shake the thought away. 

Anyway, I shift so I can see the rest of the picture and have to catch my breath at the sight of such clear blue eyes. Striking, even in the less than flattering mugshot. They pin me to the chair more effectively than these chains.

I close my eyes and sit back with another shake of my head.

“Well?” the warden demands.

I force my eyelids to part to acknowledge him. He leans forward in his chair, much more alert than he was when I first woke. I don’t let myself meet his eyes, instead I look back down at the file, at the impersonally typed name at the top of the file.

I shake my head again, just one more time.

“No.” It feels important, somehow. Even if I did, I don’t know if I would say. “Who’s Dominic Tchaikovsky?”

~-S-~

**Day Eleven**

I have a working formula. It’s still a mess, it takes a little longer to take effect than I’d like, but it works. I’ve lost too many rats in the lab to easily explain, so I’m going to back off for a while.

That’s why I’m here, in the Zoo, barking at a group of soldiers to take more rats into the lab so I can work on my _official_ project. I should get it done as soon as possible so I have a peace offering. If I can just get him to _trust_ me, I can put this behind me. I can go back to my life.

I can let myself be what I’m supposed to be.

I watch the soldiers maneuver through the door back toward the lab. I want to stay behind for a little bit. They’re more than capable of doing this themselves, and I have a lead to follow.

Gary Owens. 195. A berserker to end all berserkers.

Nothing more than a beast now, violent and angry. We don’t have a cage big enough for it anymore. I have no idea what Cross plans to do with it between now and whenever Doctor Furnace plans on retrieving it.

Though I’m not so invested in this project, I wonder if it would dim aggression for berserkers too. It wouldn’t go anywhere if I were to follow that line of testing. Furnace treats them like pets and I doubt a docile one would last long on the island.

“ _O̧n̵ ̛your ̕gua͜rḑ.̛_ ”

I tilt my head toward the door back toward the infirmary just as it opens. Cross stalks in, and I busy myself with checking the berserker’s vitals. This was one of the tasks I was left with after the incident with the escaped inmates. There’s nothing _strange_ about me doing this.

Still, he dips tendrils of nectar over my thoughts as he approaches. That suspicion, the irritation it sparks in retaliation, makes it easy to focus only on that and 191’s chainsaw growl. The inspection withdraws without any kind of accusation or alarm sounded, so I think I can assume that he missed the important things I have hidden.

“Cross.” I write a final note and clip the pen to some papers before I look up from my clipboard. “Did you need something?”

He stops at my side. “I have a job for you.”

Of course he does.

“Good timing.” I swivel to face him and tuck the clipboard under my arm. At least he doesn’t look to be in a bad mood. A familiar garment bag hans on his arm, a new soldier must be getting one today. “I’m just waiting around the rest of the day.”

“Our problem inmates have finished their testing.” His brow quirks at whatever face I make at that. “I want you to do one final check on 209.”

“ _Ço̴wa͘ŗd͘.͜_ ”

The voice’s disdain does nothing to wipe away the pure _euphoria_ that hits me. This is big, a lot of trust put directly on my shoulders! An olive branch, maybe, or a clean slate. Or maybe he was never as mad as I thought in the first place.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve blown things out of proportion like that!

I do try to contain myself, though.

“What kind of check?” I ask with as level a voice I can under the buzz of relief.

He lifts the garment bag in offering. “Escort him to storage 312. If he can’t kill one of his little friends, he’s no use to us.”

I start nodding before he finishes and snatch the suit. I’ve been making up work to do for almost two weeks, now _this_ is something I can do.

“Is he still in the infirmary, or—”

“B5.” Cross looks away, distracted. He steps back, his message imparted and evidently done here. “As soon as possible, if you will.” 

I gaze after him. Wait until he leaves for a victorious whine. I can’t punch the air like I desperately want to, not without dropping one thing or another, so it’ll have to do.

The voice chuckles behind me, not enough to break my good mood. It drifts along with me when I head out. I hand off the clipboard to a familiar soldier with a direction to bring it back to the lab before I start back the same way Cross went.

As soon as possible may as well be right now!

He trusts me! Maybe I was wrong to think he really didn’t in the first place!

“ _B̨es̛i̶d̶es._ ” I slam the door shut a little harder than I mean to at the voice’s staticky purr. “ _W҉ha̕t̡ ͏a ķ̴͜͢k̵̢̛͟͡k̢̕͡k̶͢ tes͡t ̸k̴̵͟͠҉k̛ķ̡k̕͜ fo͟r̴ yo͝u!҉ Don͡'t k̨͞k̶̷̨͞k̸̛͜͞k͝k̟̱̺̖͓̰ȋ̫̫̬̲͗͂͂ͥ͛̈͞l̡̐̔̆ͨl̓̾͋ ̖̙̲̤͚̳͔ͥ͋̌ͭ͑̐h̐ͭ͌̉ͫͬĭm̟̹͗ͧ͋͢.̖̮_ ”

Between the inherent heat of a place like Furnace and the molten heat of the nectar, I live in a world of fire. Anything cold doesn’t stay long, unless it’s ready to perish in the river. Still, no force in the world could keep the ice from filling my gut.

The voice is right. Cross could trust me completely. It won’t matter if I can’t keep my temper around the soldiers.

The question is, how far will Cross be willing to go if I fail _my_ test?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Connor is absolutely so much of a mess over Dominic (without eve realizing it pre-nectar, at this point!!) that seeing the damn boy's face brings him like a millimeter from remembering everything. How many times do you think Cross had to accidentally remind him of Dominic before he realized that would be the go to to see if he remembered shit.
> 
> Also, as a side note, Cross was NOT trying to make Connor forget Sawyer. Just the context of why everything was happening and the other friends he was there with. It would be a pretty big ask to get him to forget about Sawyer lmao, especially with the plan to have Sawyer test him and interact in a general sense.


	4. Nothing is Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the letter in the partition for each POV swap. More on, uh. THAT in the end of chapter notes.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

It took me a few minutes to really recognize them. After they’d handed over the suit, once that suspicious look left their eyes. It was when we were about to leave the room full of bunks, when another blacksuit blocked the door and the two paused to regard each other.

It wasn’t the muted respect he wore, different than anything I’d seen these soldiers point at the warden. Not the sudden twist to their words, the question I only felt because of who they are, the confusion beneath the command they wear so easily.

The soldier leaned close to them and, just loud enough for me to hear, muttered, “It was a pleasure to work with you again these past few weeks.”

He didn’t give them a chance to answer before he ducked back out and left them stock-still in the doorway. And that was it.

The moment of calculated hesitation. The instant to decide how to proceed. The small shake that followed, the purpose to their step when they started forward as if nothing happened. No room for questions, they’d just evade anything if I did decide to ask about it.

_Sawyer._

I knew they were here, but this is the first time I’ve seen them since… well, since whatever happened between the last time we came to Furnace and now. They look different. Stronger.

We’re on our way to my final test, something to make sure I’m really ready to join Furnace’s ranks. That’s what the warden told me before he put me under last. It’s what Sawyer hinted at when they first handed me the suit I now wear.

But for now that’s the last thing on my mind.

They’ve been pointing out bits of the prison as we walk, bland and clinical. I don’t know if they remember me, not like I remember them, so I don’t mention it. I listen, I nod, I let them take the lead in this. If I’ve learned anything, that’s the only way not to end up in the dust.

They give a sharp jab about how much of the prison I explored before the warden gave me my place here. It doesn’t land hard, a glancing needle that bubbles with a moment of guilt about how much work I gave both of them.

I pause at a crossroads, three ways we could go. A flicker of memory, a frantic chase down these halls. It takes a second to untangle, to reorient, to recognize that the infirmary lies to the left. To the right, the furnace.

God, I was being so _stupid_ then, wasn’t I?

Sawyer stops a few steps ahead and faces me. “You recognize this place. Did you head up this way?” They jerk their head toward the third path, straight ahead.

I almost shake my head, but another memory overlaps the first. I’ve been that way once, but…

“I think I went that way with you.” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to shake the inconsistencies away. “A long time ago, when we were on the other side.”

When I open my eyes again, they don’t look at me. Their narrowed eyes turn downward and they angle slightly away. Must be someone on the com or something.

After a moment, they shake their head with a put-out little huff and start walking again. “Tell me more about what you remember from that time.”

_Oh?_

“Not really much, just things you told me.” I follow along and try to ignore the shiver down my spine when I remember the wheezers that lined the hall somewhere in the distant past. “How much you cared about everyone who came out of here, the history of this place. How you—”

I don’t want to cross a line here. I’m so, so aware that they’re my superior here. I might know them but I’m ridiculously new on their territory. It’s oil on water, the idea of _then_ and _now_. What’s the difference?

A slippery feeling in the back of my head keeps me from continuing for just a second too long.

“Yes?” they prompt and goddamn it I really don’t have a choice.

“Uh.” I try to find something else to fit into the hole I left there. There really isn’t anything but what I was originally going to say. Fuck it, just say it. “How much you hated the warden.”

They stop in front of a door without looking at me. They pull a keyring from their pocket with a thoughtful nod and no comment on that.

“Follow close,” they mutter. “Don’t look at them.”

I almost ask what they mean but stop when I get a closer look at the door they fit the key into. The second it cracks open, a cheery vintage voice croons through an old speaker.

My steps remain confident when I follow them. I’m much less afraid of the wheezers than I am of disappointing Sawyer and the warden.

~-S-~

Do I hate Cross?

“ _Y͝e̵s̨.͘_ ”

I should be paying attention to the new soldier. I should be more disconcerted about how easily he moves in this space, as if he’s been here before—if what he says is true, though, he _has_. I have this terrible feeling that if I let him, he could get to the storage room without my help.

He didn’t even flinch when we passed through the wheezer’s cells.

I should be poking and prodding at his memory while we walk. See how strong the nectar’s hold really is. I’m worried that if he breaks through it, he’ll drag me along with him. I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to know just how I rebelled or why.

But the question still remains, forgetting everything that may have been and anything he may have done while I was gone—do I hate Cross? 

“ _Y҉e͏s. ̷I ̧pr̴o͘m̧is͢e̵._ ”

I resolve to ignore the gentle hum from the voice. It’s not exactly being constructive. The triumphant lilt to every sound, every touch, has me even more on edge than standing next to the soldier formerly known as Connor Sawyer.

The soldier keeps talking as we approach the Zoo. He asks about the wheezers, checks that his information about their past and who they used to be is correct. It is, of course it is.

Apparently, _I_ was the one who told him the history of Furnace.

“The warden—” I interrupt when we stop at the Zoo door—he stopped before I did, that’s uncomfortable. “—will be very interested to hear what you already know. I’ll make sure he speaks with you about it.”

“ _H̷̸͜͝m̴̴̨͘͡.̢͢҉̵_ ”

“Oh.” He looks momentarily put out. His expression raises back into a perfect half-moon imitation of his new brothers before long. “Okay.”

I watch him while I drag the door open. I watch how his face briefly draws into a grimace when he sees the hectic energy of the Zoo. I watch it slip back into a fairly neutral gaze as he walks through the door ahead of me.

Now I know for a fact he isn’t lying about having been here before. You can look at blueprints. Memorize a map. There are some things you have to really see, and he’s seen this before. Only familiarity could keep one from losing their step.

Even with the depleted stock of rats, the cavernous room reeks of blood, of death. Cages line the walls, half of them holding the dead specimens yet to be dragged off to the incinerator. Others have Cross’s dogs, some haven’t been given any nectar and others are simply waiting for him to come take them to the pens. Stains of black and red dot the floor.

I shoulder my way ahead of him to at least keep the facade that I’m _leading_ him anywhere. He doesn’t comment on the death, not on a pool of blood still growing from a cage whose resident tore its own arm off before it perished.

He stays so silent I almost keep walking when he stops halfway across the room. This isn’t the worst part of the Zoo, not by a long shot—we won’t be visiting that section today, fortunately. I hope he doesn’t lose his nerve _here_ of all places.

I’m wrong to worry for his constitution, however, when I turn to find out what he’s looking at.

195.

He’s grown even more in the short time I’ve been gone. We need to get him out of the prison as soon as possible, especially with his co-conspirators done with their transitions. The curiosity 209 has pinned on him now makes me uneasy enough.

“Problem?” I ask lightly. 

I can’t identify the look he gives me. Worst case scenario, he’s remembering. Cross has already put more resources than normal into him. It would be a shame to have to scrap him after so much work.

“That’s a berserker.” He looks back at the cage just in time for the creature to howl in fury. The sound rings out without drawing so much as a flinch from the soldier. “What’s he doing here?”

 _Okay,_ so. Strictly speaking, he shouldn’t know about the berserkers. He shouldn’t have any concept of where they should or shouldn’t be. I barely interact with this one outside of, like. Checking vitals and getting it ready for Dr. Furnace to take it away.

But it’s better for him to remember this than who either of them used to be.

“It’ll be removed soon,” I assure him smoothly. “The nectar does this sometimes, a novelty of the process.”

“ _He ķ͜k̛k̴̢͝͞k͏͢ know͝s.̶_ ”

“I know that part,” he says without looking at me. Thank god for that, because I shoot a glare at the voice. “It’s just—it’s a berserker. I thought most of them were made with the other nectar, with the red flecks. This is only the warden’s plaything, what he and I have in us, right?”

The knowledge that he knows about the other forms of nectar and the berserkers rattles me. It takes me a moment to regain my composure, which makes me glad he’s distracted by the beast. The voice’s burst of a laugh doesn’t help.

“Yes, you’re exactly right.” I start walking and the soldier follows after a moment. “Dr. Furnace enjoys dealing with the berserkers—”

“They’re his family,” he says flatly. “And yours. From what I remember, they were the ones you were most worried about before.”

That jars me. I stop and I feel him almost bump into me, the heat radiating from him just behind me. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember ever having close contact with the berserkers beyond relaying them to my Furnace. The fact that I was concerned about them even when I was fighting Dr. Furnace sheds the wrong kind of light on who I was before.

I start walking as if I never stopped. “We’re all his family.”

Something shifts, the nectar lets go of one, single image. A circle of smiling faces. A flicker, not even enough to recognize them, then it’s gone. Buried back where it belongs.

I manage not to stumble. I catch sight of the door we’re after and speed up. Let’s get this over with. The screams from the warrens of the Zoo are starting to give me a headache—though that might only be the increased buzz from the voice still just over my shoulder. 

I try not to think of that glimpse. I try in vain to drown the feeling of belonging along with the image with the voice’s purring laugh in my ear.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

Something’s wrong with Sawyer. I can’t quite put my finger on it. 

I don’t tell them this, obviously, they’re way too on edge for me to do that. I just follow them out of the cacophonous Zoo and into the ringing silence of the next hall without a word.

Doors line the hall. Halfway down, maybe a couple hundred feet away, one stands open and crimson light spills through into the hallway. It churns my stomach, that light. I have to steel myself to follow Sawyer towards it.

Booming laughter almost drowns out a third voice from the room. I don’t know what anyone’s saying in there. I just have this feeling. I’ve walked this path before, somehow. Not that that changes what’s happening now.

Here we are.

My final test.

The last thing I have to do before…

A clash of thought hits and my steps falter. I shoot a glance at Sawyer to find their troubled gaze on the open door as they keep walking. I don’t stop, I can’t stop, I can’t let them see.

The one thought, the obvious one, ‘before I really belong’ stays in reach. The warm glow of family and fitting snugly where I’m meant to be doesn’t go away. It’s the second one that I can’t quite call up again. It was desperate, a moment of panic.

I don’t remember what it was, just another oil slick over what should be there. I don’t remember a lot, to tell the truth. I know there’s a reason for it, but still. The rotten gaps in my memory make me nervous.

Before I can think too hard about it, Sawyer halts to block the path. We’re just far enough away that I can’t really see inside the room. Their gaze bores into me, intense and thoughtful.

It’s a familiar look. A deep consideration before they can say whatever it is that’s on their mind. Being friends with them was a waiting game when they were at their worst. With them out of sorts, I’d say this qualifies.

“With everything else you know,” they say slowly after a shorter pause than I honestly expect. “I’m sure you know that not everyone makes it. We get berserkers. Rats.”

A particularly loud cry comes from the door, followed by a snicker that could only come from a blacksuit. A beat of silence, in which they turn their head slightly and curl their lip for just a second.

“Failures,” they continue with a touch of impatience. They back out of my way and beckon me to enter the room ahead of them. “This is your test.”

I don’t wait for them to tell me again.

The red light overhead has my heart racing before I can even take in the rest of the room. It’s bright, too bright for my gifted eyes to turn to black and white.

Then I catch sight of the boy chained to a chair in the middle of the room. He must have made it through some of the surgeries, his swollen chest and right arm proof enough of that. Even more so when he lifts his head to pin those silver eyes on me, gilded red by the light.

He mouths a word I can’t hear.

It’s not that, I don’t think, that roots me to the spot. It’s not the two blacksuits stationed behind the boy, who both wear the standard half-moon smiles I’m still not used to the idea of owning. 

There’s something in his expression. The kind of desperation you could only point at someone you know. Who you trust.

It melts into nothing short of terror when Sawyer’s voice comes again. 

“Failures have no place here.” They’re just walking in when I tear my eyes from the boy to look at them. What took them so long out there? “He must die.”

“Looks like you were right, huh, Connor?” the boy calls. I snap around to find him still watching me. “Not there at all, are they?”

One of the soldiers smacks the back of the kid’s head with a sharp mutter.

I glance at Sawyer, who sidles up beside me with a disdainful sniff. “We gave him a second chance. It wasn’t worth the resources, in the end.”

He will never belong among the ranks of Furnace, is what they’re getting at. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Recurring, always, this sense of belonging.

I shudder at the slimy feeling that coats it again for just a second.

“Go ahead.” They rest a hand on my arm for just a moment, surprisingly soft for how cold they’ve been this whole time. “Kill him.”

I take a step forward.

The simple fact is, I’m already a murderer. I’ve killed berserkers and soldiers. Blacksuits, specters back in the Cube. Inmates who would have killed me if I wasn’t faster. My counterpoint is, I’m not proud of that. I’m not proud of the necessary deaths or the deaths of convenience.

When Sawyer growls again for me to kill this boy, I still force myself further forward. I’m not proud of any of it, I’m not. I’m _scared_ of disappointing Sawyer and the warden. If I don’t do this, what does that make me?

Another failure?

I find myself a step away from the chair, close enough it would be _easy_. I know the power of the nectar, and he’s not even half-formed. I could kill him in seconds. So easy.

I can’t move.

The _failure_ looks past me—Sawyer, probably—before he meets my eyes again. It’s a change, being able to do that. It’s impossible with the warden and Sawyer’s avoided looking directly at me for the most part.

He smiles, tired and resigned. “It’s okay. Maybe it’s best if we call it quits here, you know?”

It catches, that slimy, slippery oil I can’t name sucks me another step closer.

“Just _kill him_ ,” Sawyer calls, almost unintelligible under the chainsaw of their very real growl.

“I mean, you’ll just make me owe Kevin when we get back.” The boy leans forward with a wry kind of smile. “He said you wouldn’t make it out against them and I bet against him. What an idiot, huh?”

_Kevin._

I shake my head and the wrongness disappears. I have to do this. I can’t disappoint them. I can’t bear to turn around and know that I didn’t do well.

Before I can move, someone curls an iron grip around my wrist. I jerk my head to look, but there’s no one there. No one, even as the hand I only feel shifts.

A burst of static comes, then: “ _Wh̷at d҉o yo̡u th̴i͟n͡k͞ k̴҉͡͏k̸͞k̵̴͠ķ̢̡ ͠you'͢r̕e̡ d̷oing̶?͠_ ”

“Connor?”

“I said—” Sawyer cuts off in a gasp when the staticky voice speaks again.

“ _Yo̵u̶'͏re ̡jus̶t k̷̨͜k̵̨͜͠k̸̷͜͢ķ̵͘͞ goi̢ng ͡t̕o k̸̡̧͘k҉̶̡͘ķ̶̛k͏̸̛̛͘ lęt͘ Do̶minic ͞d̡ie͘ ͢k͏͢k̶̢͢͞k̛͏҉k̢̛̛͠ for ̡no͜th͘i͡n̵g?̛_ ” it hisses right in my ear.

I hunch slightly. I can’t _breathe_ at the sudden pressure in my chest. I don’t even know at _what,_ but before I can think too hard, it continues.

“ _A̛n̵d ͟S̸aw͝y͞e̸r͠?҉ Y͞o͠u sa͝i͝d̛ yo̴u k͏̛҉k̢͢͡k̛͝k̡̧̨̛ wo̕ul̡dn't ̴l̨eave͏ th͡e͏m ̨ag̸ain̕._ ” At that, I freeze. The grip on my wrist loosens, ever so slightly. 

Impossibly audible, something pops between my ears.

Three years.

Always moving, I waited. Ears open, eyes wide, waiting for them like we always do.

Two sets of eyes, almost the same. Screens buzz in one, orange light consumes the other.

Water. Everywhere. The water that was missing from my final meeting with Cross. The rapids that should have been flowing, frozen. A secret conversation, an unbearable loss that had to be borne. No choice but to move forward.

No choice. I have too much to do to grieve. Just like them, no time.

I want to go home.

“ _A͠h͢.͡ ̨Ther̵e҉ y͡o̴u͢ ar͟e.͘_ ”

“Jesus Christ, Connor, are you okay?”

The hand disappears. I snap upright to stare at the boy. At—fuck, the nectar still won’t—oh, at _Simon_. I watch him and his misplaced concern until I hear another disgruntled sound from behind me. 

Out of time.

I turn to find Sawyer not even looking at me. They glare at nothing—nothing I can see, at least. I flex my wrist and march directly to them. They don’t look up until I’m right in front of them, but god do they look pissed when they do. 

“This was your last chance, inmate,” they snarl. To my surprise, they make no move against me. “Such a simple task, and you couldn’t even do that.”

Oh, _Sawyer._  

I can’t help but feel bad for them. I know they’ll destroy themself over all of this later. It won’t be easy for any of us to go home this time. I don’t blame them, they’ll do that enough for the rest of us when they remember everything.

I still need them to get out of our way.

“Your test was bad—” I inform them. “—and you should feel bad.”

I lift my hand just in time for the siren to start up, for me to realize _that’s_ why they aren’t stopping me when their hand falls from their pocket to their side with a black box in their fist. That doesn’t stop me. With them so much shorter than me, it’s easy to get my thumb against their forehead, to get the simplest command possible to spark from me to them.

_Sleep, you fucking disaster._

They crumple before I even finish the thought.

The siren holds the room in otherwise-silent suspense. I take a covert glance around, but there’s no sign of any, uh. Invisible spectators, I guess.

Then I swing around to find Simon already rubbing his wrists, one blacksuit with broken chains in his hands and the other a heap on the floor next to the wall. The two friendlies give me strange looks.

I return Simon’s first. I’m not impressed.

“So, you like. Really have that little faith in me, huh.”

He splutters back. The gist of what he gets out is something about a ploy to get me to remember. I don’t think we would have had to worry, anyway, not with one of the loyal suits in the room with us.

Who just laughs and drops the chains on the ground after a respectful allowance of time. “You’d better haul ass. Cross is still out there somewhere.”

Ah shit, that’s right.

Simon tips an invisible hat at the suit and moves for the door. I don’t blame him for being ready to get the hell out of here. The suit gives no indication that he has anything else for me, so I follow Simon. 

I pause for a second when I pass Sawyer.

It would be easy to take them with us. Carrying them down the hall, I doubt anyone would question me taking them back to Cross’s office. We could probably drag their memory out with enough time.

But, then again...

_You can’t save them._

It’s a physical sort of swelling pain in my chest when I force myself to keep going. To ignore the pity in Simon’s gaze when I pass him at the doorway. Bringing them along would just complicate things anyway.

I’ll keep telling myself that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on the POV stuff and just about these daydreams in general, because I'm really thinking less about readability and more about conveying the daydream itself, I guess? I only daydream interesting parts of a narrative. Like, I'll daydream a fight but I might skip a lull between two plot points because not much happens.
> 
> So there isn't a lot from Sawyer's POV sometimes to work with! I have to pull from Connor and Virtuoso/the splinter to make up for that. They fill the gaps really well for the bits I didn't really care about at the time I was daydreaming it.
> 
> I guess that's the big difference between the stuff I write just for writing and the stuff that I write for daydreams. I don't want to write a narrative that didn't have any actual thought or consideration behind it when I'm writing a daydream because in the end the daydream writing is for ME. I just need to get it out, spit it onto a page, prove to myself that it's okay to share the things I had poured taboo on and held so close to me that it felt like a crime to try to explain.
> 
> And I've come a long way!
> 
> This is a daydream that started in the beginning of 2016. I wasn't planning on writing it when I first started it. I was just trying to tear pieces of myself apart in the hopes it would leave something I could fit together in a way that was more comfortable. I was doing the best I could then, but I look back and know that I was just a tired kid with too much weight to carry almost four years ago.
> 
> This daydream marked the end of something. A promise to never look at this universe as a playground again. It wasn't supposed to be a story, it wasn't supposed to be shared, I was doing my best.
> 
> That's why this story is so dark. I try to find places in Connor and Virtuoso's POVs to insert humor, but it's hard. The whole point was that it wasn't fun. It wasn't good. The whole thing was so heavy, a weight that I could transfer from my own back to a version of myself in my daydreams. 
> 
> It wasn't until halfway through Death Sentence that I decided that it would be good to write it, maybe. To get it down and have a record of what I'm doing in my brain. Something to look at and think 'yeah, I deserve to feel traumatized from that right?' because no matter how much I know a daydream isn't real it feels like it is when it's happening.
> 
> I was scared when I was daydreaming Furnace. It hurt, so much. It tore me apart, like it was supposed to, but by the time it was done the places those pieces were supposed to be didn't exist anymore. They were a completely different flavor of fantasy, a hope that hurting myself would make things better in the end.
> 
> This is very different from my newer daydreams. There are still echoes of that sentiment, the hurt in order to heal, but nowhere near as heavy and suffocating as in this. The Gregor daydream hurt, so do the Trollhunters and Series of Unfortunate Events daydreams, but the point isn't to fall into the past to destroy a part of myself. It's to run at these worlds head on and maybe save myself while I try to fight destiny and fate and everything that dares say that things have to happen a certain way.
> 
> And this is probably more than anyone needed to know about some faceless writer on AO3. Then again, I don't think I've said anything more revealing than my daydream projects are on their own.
> 
> tl;dr there are a lot of POV swaps because my daydream writing is for me and this is how the dice landed when I was dreaming the damn thing.


	5. Even the Well Worn Path is Dangerous When You're Dissociating the Whole Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a three chapter update! Chapter four is also new, so go ahead and go back if you haven't read it yet!

??V??

I twist at the In-Between again, more out of habit than anything by now. 

Sawyer’s out of commission, Connor’s trying to free Gary and get back to the infirmary without getting killed. It would really suck if that happened after so much work. Other than that, I’m just kind of killing time out here.

Anyway, something brushes my fingers from the depths of the unseen. That hasn’t happened before. Whatever it is has probably been there this whole time. I might live here, but I’m getting really tired of the Cube and all of its eccentricities.

I splay my fingers out until I can get a good grip on the smooth plastic _thing_. I tilt my head in question when I feel around it, like a handle or maybe… maybe a headband? 

Oh, I know I _can_ get into this universe. Is the little shit of a dreamscape gonna let me before _it’s_ ready? Absolutely not, apparently. Just like I can reach into these little pockets and only get anything back when my golden retriever of a universe finally gets its slobbery teeth out of it.

Anyway, I have a feeling I know what it is, especially when I find what feels like a little wire floating about in the ether as well. I tug it out and do my very best not to get my hopes up.

The screen listing different phrases, banked words I’ve had to weave together—about as obnoxious as it sounds—flickers and disappears as my hand leaves the pocket. After the translucent gray headset pops out, the wire spools after it until the little hole in the In-Between spits out a little black box.

“This—” I fish the box up to inspect it, just to be _sure_ , before I allow the bone-melting relief turn me to mush. “Well, that’s _something!_ ”

My knees shake and I manage to conjure a computer chair just in time to fall into it.

 _I did it_.

I fumble with the wire, all butter fingers and soft sounds of wonder, until I manage to jam the headset over my ears. The earpiece is kind of useless since hearing isn’t the problem. The little _microphone_ is what I’m after..

“Oh.”

I look up to find the splinter watching me. They tilt their head a little before they float down and run their fingers over the headset. They’re very careful not to touch me, though curiosity sparks from them when they get too close. It’s a long moment of silence I hold my breath for. Their assessment could make or break how useful this is.

They touch the wire for just a second, then snort.

“You don’t need this part, you know?” They tug on the wire to jerk the box around. “I can’t tell if this is staying true to your aesthetic or betraying it.”

“It’s what the Cube gave me!” I wave them away.

They back off with a cavalier shrug. “Whatever you say.”

I sink further into my chair, swivel around, and get back to watching the screens. It’s so much easier to focus on them without the massive board of words in the way. 

We’ll see what I can do once Sawyer wakes up.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

Simon dives through a curtain on one side of the room the second we reach the empty infirmary. I pause and sift through the shattered memories. What’s next, what now?

The moment it takes to recall leaves my hands shaking when I start on the curtains on the other side. We have to find the others, then we can go. _Finally,_ we can get out of this goddamn prison.

Another box checked. Here’s hoping I can pull myself together before we get to the harder ones.

I shake my head and move to the second curtain. Everything’s so surreal at this point. It’s dark enough that my new eyes turn the room into a mess of silver and white. It shifts and dances as I move.

Nothing feels real. Even worse, I know underneath everything that it _isn’t_.

At first, I assume the siren must have lured the wheezers normally on guard out of here. It would make sense. Danger, go find the source, that logic. Or whatever it is I’m operating on at this point.

I find two of them dead behind the third curtain I pull. I stare at them for a beat while my brain catches up. Maybe I should do something? Make it look less like a blacksuit popped those fragile bones in their necks?

I don’t realize until I already have a scalpel in hand from a nearby tray that there’s no point. Yeah, it could have been one of our loyal Scouts..

It also could have been me.

I leave the curtain open and move on with the scalpel comically small in my hand.

I start getting worried about halfway through the cots. Some of them aren’t _empty,_ but I’m not about to drag some random constructs out of here. Still, I worry for nothing. It turns out, all four of our friends are clustered right next to our exit into the halls. Convenient, right?

Right.

Zee’s the only one without an IV jammed into his arm or any evidence of those surgeries Cross likes so much. He’s already awake by the time I pull his curtain back. He only swivels his head around and squints at me when I properly step into his little cubicle.

“Connor, for the love of god please tell me that’s you.”

“Let’s get you out of that bed.” My voice sounds strange when I use it, even discounting the gravel filter the warden put it through. I try to smile through that surreal veil I’m working with. 

“Oh, good.” He sits up with a little sigh of relief. He lifts his leather-manacled hand while I approach with the knife. If he notices anything wrong, he doesn’t show it. “That’s that part done, then.”

“On to the next one, I guess.” And the next, and the next. “I just gotta go grab the others real quick.”

“Have fun with your brain magic, my dude,” he says when I have his bindings all cut and he can finally slide off the stretcher.

I guess I’ll just. Do that, then.

Once I make sure everyone’s accounted for, I start with Alex. He’ll probably be the easiest to get back. That’s just who he is. Someone here has to have a grounded sense of self, after all.

I make my way back to him and hope that Cross stopped using the blue stuff on them the way he did me. That I don’t have to wade through that, risk getting caught in it.

Unlike Zee, Alex is still conked out. When I get too close, a soft growl starts in his throat even though he remains in his fitful sleep.

I rest my hands on either side of his head, fingertips on his temple. I feel like it should be harder to call in enough concentration to slip into his head. Something about the air, this stagnant touch to every breath. It keeps the fear and the anger and the _everything else_ from catching.

It’s weird, how much easier to make these things than it is to find them. It would be hard, even without the clinging, slimy, insistent demand of the nectar to stop. To forget it. To revel in the destruction that’s left.

The interaction here is different. I’m not just in a nebula here, with information at my fingertips. No, this is different. A picture forms for me, golden orbs smeared and sunken in with oily galaxies. Some of the orbs are more obscured than others, most just around me only carry flecks of the nectar’s veil. 

I squint at one I can still see. It sparks into a sort of screen and shows a blurry loop of Alex’s final test in the original books. The moment that he killed Ozzie, the moment he thought there was no going back.

Well, well, well, we all know at this point that we’ve come back from a lot worse than that.

I drift through and poke at different memories. The further I go, the less I can see. The less the nectar lets Alex remember.

A victory in the tower, the pride from Furnace pounds from the orb directly to my brain.

His command of the berserkers. The fear is obscured, the exhilaration of victory is not.

Abandoned, utterly alone when those he loved on the surface let him go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. All traces of Furnace itself are lost to the nectar, the idea of abandonment attached to the rest of the world instead.

Clever.

The warden. The raw power. This one is drowned out enough I catch only the barest trace of the anger and fear that should go with the memory. Really, it’s impressive there’s enough left without it to recognize him at all.

The last one I can really make out is unmistakable only because I know Cross would want it gone and there’s no way it could get fully erased. The savage satisfaction is too much, something the nectar would normally feed from directly.

Cross again. A gathering of wheezers. So many knives, so many needles, a strong coward turned weak and torn to pieces by creatures he deemed only worthy for use as tools.

The rest are hidden. No more light. Nothing to see here, don’t poke around, don’t make waves. Fog pushes at the edges of my concentration. At least it’s _supposed_ to be doing that here. I’m lucky I’m not dealing with the blue nectar, though I think I would be able to find my way through it.

Brain spelunking, expert mode. After so long in Sawyer’s memories I could probably swing that.

Ah, there it is.

Nestled snug between two blacked out memories, a teal ball waits for me. It glows brighter when I get closer. It knows it’s time. It won’t let us down.

I only have to touch it for it to jerk and pop.

I flinch so hard from the now-uncovered orbs that I yoink myself right out of Alex’s head. I stumble back at the same time he jerks awake with a garbled cough. I don’t wait for his unfocused eyes to turn on ne to leave his side to start on Donovan.

I have two more to go, he can wait a couple minutes while I drag our friends back.

??V??

“Should we do it now?” The splinter hovers behind me with their hands on my back.

“No.”

They make an uncertain sound that pulls a ripple from the In-Between. “It would be the perfect timing, keep them safe and let everyone go home.”

I was worried they’d go there.

“And what would we do with Sawyer?” I trace the maps of the underground. Intersections of probability that I don’t like at all. “If we finish it now, do we send them back to the Cube like this? ”

The whole point of keeping everything locked was to keep the infection that is the nectar from infecting the Cube. It has to be purified before we can let such a powerful splinter return with it in their blood. If I could interfere with the nectar, I would do it myself. I just can’t. 

The only way to finish this is for the game to continue. Connor’s constant complaint in the hours he’s spent here. To do one thing, we must do another—then to do that we have another laundry list of tasks. All the way down.

The splinter huffs and crowds closer to point at another screen. On it, the boys are still recovering in the infirmary. Hugs and whispered explanations that I’m sure would be interesting to hear. It just doesn’t matter, not when there’s still so much to do.

“You’re just gonna let them go by themselves?” Their fingers grip tight in what I know is more fear than impatience. “I thought you didn’t gamble with your universe?”

I watch another screen. It and the one right next to it, but the first is what matters. One blacksuit stalls another, who keeps trying to sidestep to get to Sawyer’s side. A clash between the two ideologies.

The other screen catches my eye, those vortices in Cross’s eyes. The absence of a scowl while he observes a set of screens. I don’t know what his plan is. I don’t know exactly what his end goal is or how he’s going to do it. I do know one thing.

Cross wants to make Sawyer suffer. 

The splinter’s concern goes directly against that goal. Yeah, they’d be mad, but why would you take anger when you can drown someone in their own sorrow? There are too many high-probability paths that would hurt them so much more. So, holding off on the next stage of our plan?

I smile.

“It’s not a gamble.”

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tired.

None of them had the blue nectar. It was a surprise, Cross letting them sit without his brand new secret weapon in their blood. Not that I’m going to complain. I just don’t like it when Cross does anything I don’t expect because I trust him about as far as I could throw him.

Or, uh.

As far as Zee could throw him, maybe, since he’s the only one without the nectar by now. Lucky fucker, being immune.

Anyway, the nectar had them all out of sorts for a few minutes. We made a quick plan, Simon and I gave the others an update on just how far Sawyer has fallen. You know, normal reunion stuff.

Simon, it turns out, gathered up a good collection of IV bags of nectar. That’s where he went, not that I was paying attention. Probably not great, to know I just _lost track_ of both him and Zee the second they left my line of sight.

We end up ripping a curtain from its track to gather them all in. Zee volunteers to carry them, slung over his shoulder like Santa, because he’s “the only non-superhuman” in the group. His words, not mine.

We don’t bother to run once we take the right out of the infirmary. Four of us are just as strong as the blacksuits at this point. There are two people in this prison who could take us down on their own and one of them’s currently out of commission.

Just the thought of the test curdles my thoughts and I have to shake my head to get it out. I'll think about it later, worry about Sawyer and how Virtuoso could possibly have been talking to me and the fact that I probably would have killed Simon if they hadn't.

I hope the others are doing better than I am, at any rate. It takes me a few seconds to realize Alex is talking to me after a few minutes.

“How long do you think we have before they wake up?” Alex asks again when I startle and look around at him.

“Fuck if I know,” I blurt without giving it much thought. After an uncomfortable moment full of nervous glances, I manage a shrug. “It depends, I guess. I just put them to sleep, so if they haven’t been taking care of themself—likely, knowing them—and no one, like, _wakes them up_ , we might already be out of here.”

That helps. I guess, with the relief mingling around in the air as evidence. I keep the worst case scenario to myself—Sawyer might already be awake.

We manage to get to the junction. Left to the caves, right to Cross’s office. It’ll be a quick stop, just in and out. We need two things—the prison blueprint and a good look at the monitors in there. We have to get the inmates to listen to us somehow, after all, and—well. We'll just see about that footage.

It’s at that junction that we stop. We hesitate. All of us but Kevin have done this before, some of us more than once. There are still some places that royally suck to enter. Cross’s office is one of them.

Zee’s the one that moves first. It shakes us all out of it, knocks us into following him to the right. We just have to get it over with.

I don’t know when or where in the short hall it happens, but I end up the first one to reach the door. I pause again. I really don’t want to go in there. 

But.

The weight I remember isn’t there. The repulsion, the magnetic urge to go back, it just doesn’t come, not even when I put my hand on the doorknob. My trepidation is all me. That’s new and new is bad in Furnace.

I open the door. I blink at what I see. Feel my face go blank, my back straighten, my breath catch. I slam the door and turn back to face the rest of the group.

“What?” Kevin demands. “Aren’t we getting out of here?”

“Okay, so.” My voice, too calm. Too level. The concept of running without what I came for doesn’t compute, a train off its tracks and a great big siren louder than the one in the air screams at me to make a decision. “I might have fucked up a little bit.”

The door opens behind me and I get to witness the gut-clenching fear wash over my friends as they realize. As they see the shark’s grin I would have seared into my mind, even if he weren’t projecting it through the nectar.

“Only a little bit?” Cross muses.


	6. No Questions Answered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a three chapter update, so if you haven't read chapters four and five, go back!!

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

I can’t move. Something in Cross’s grip on my mind won’t let me. Not fear, not duty, just a vice grip I don’t dare to struggle against. The most I can do is watch him out of the corner of my eyes when he steps forward to stand beside me.

The others skitter back a few steps at his advance. Good to know I’m the only one he has glued in place. I wish I could tell them to just _go_. To forget the shit we need, I’m sure they could figure it out without the map, without me.

 **Where, pray tell, did you think I would be?** he asks through the nectar. The words dig through my skull and burrow deep like maggots. **It is** **_my_ ** **office, after all.**

I watch my friends. Based on their expressions, he’s saying something out loud as well. I can’t hear it. It’s just me and the warden in my head.

I got comfortable. So settled on the tracks that I didn’t _think_. Fail the test, let Gary lose, collect friends, warden’s office—and then, and then, and then, on and on. 

I did this.

 **I should thank you, really.** The smile curls around my own thoughts, throttles my already building anxiety into overdrive. **The test was a special kind of treat to watch.**

_Get out of my head._

The others flinch. Not sure if it’s at something Cross said or the sudden chainsaw growl I feel rather than hear in my own throat. Alex yells something, can’t tell what. More anger than fear, now.

He laughs. It sends a ripple of fury through the nectar, another rumble in my chest, a shiver ready to creep up my spine. **Testy.**

All at once, I slump back into control of my body. Too much sound, clamoring accusations from in front of me, that laugh still in my head and echoed beside me.

_Shit._

I nearly trip over my own feet in my haste to get to literally any place that isn’t within arms reach of Cross. Luckily, the direction I chose was _forward_ , so I stumble to rejoin my friends rather than reeling into the office. My subconscious has a little sense, at least.

“Connor!”

Too many hands catch me, keep me from losing my footing. All trace of Cross has gone from my head, but he’s still right fucking there and I don’t know what to do. This would be the time Sawyer would bullshit something to say to him, give the others time to get out. Something. They always have an idea, or pretend to.

I can’t even raise my head to acknowledge my friends.

“I’m on a schedule.” The warden says in that false cordial voice of his. “So sorry to cut this short.”

At that, I do snap up and around to finally— _finally—_ face Cross. I take a step back among the shuffle of the group when he takes one forward. Simon and Zee still grip my arms, fists held in the fabric of my jacket. 

I blink and Cross is right in front of our little group. Or, well, not exactly. He’s a little to the right. Too close, enough that most of us cringe back against the opposite wall.

All but Alex. No, Alex stands directly in front of the warden.

Cross tilts his head slightly and his smile grows. “It took gallons of nectar, a _bomb_ , and an inordinate amount of luck for you to kill me the first time. Do you think your cowering friends will make up for everything you don’t have?

The stand off—Cross’s faint amusement against Alex’s defiance—reminds me again. This was his story. He defeated Cross, he won. He won without the help we have now from the Cube. Without any kind of script.

No checklists. God, I’m dumb.

Alex doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t waver. He only shifts when Cross moves to pass him—which would bring him closer to the rest of us. It wipes the smile off Cross’s face, at least.

“I have a feeling you would rather your remaining _friend—_ ” He turns a nasty glance at me, full of dark satisfaction. “—not be torn apart. She will, by the berserker you all released, if you don’t _stand aside._ ”

It echoes in my head, and I’m not the only one to flinch. Even Simon cringes, enough nectar in him to catch the anger hidden under the slight irritation that makes it into Cross’s voice.

 _They,_ I don’t dare say out loud. A correction too late. One he wouldn’t listen to.

Alex moves—at first I think he’s gonna take a swing at him—to the side. 

Cross waits a beat. It’s a moment stretched into an infinity I don’t want to think about. He could kill us single handedly. He just straightens his jacket and continues back down the way we came. Off to collect Sawyer.

To keep them alive for reasons I can’t begin to guess.

Five pairs of eyes turn on me the second Cross leaves sight. I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know what I can say to explain what I don’t understand.

In the end, it’s Zee that breaks the silence.

“Well.” His voice is hoarse, even after he clears his throat. “Better get on with it, huh?”

??V??

The group on the screen finally goes into the office with Alex in the lead. He looks like he’s the least shaken. Lord knows if I’m right. Connor still looks out of sorts—but then so does everyone else. 

The splinter slumps on usual their perch ‘on’ my shoulders. In practice, this results in them essentially riding piggyback without making me really hold their weight. They have the decency not to force that on me, at least. They tuck their head against my shoulder and shudder a breath.

“I told you it would be fine.” The strain in my voice gives my own nerves away. “Everything’s fine.”

“What was the plan if you were wrong?” they ask, voice small but too close not to hear.

I reach up to pat their hand on the side opposite their head. “We’d have done it your way. Cross might be fast, but he’s not fast enough to get past us, right?”

“Talk about a deux ex machina.” They laugh into my shoulder. Good. They keep telling me to relax—it’s their turn now.

“That’s why I’m _supposed_ to be unbiased.” I wave at the screens to reconfigure them. Connor’s screen shrinks to bring Cross back into focus. “I shouldn’t be doing any of this.”

“Oh yeah?” They let go of me and flip lazily over my head so they can look me in the eye. Them being upside down takes some of the impact from their challenging smirk. “Who’s gonna stop you?”

I tense up. I hate that question, about my rules and the hows and the whys and the _whatever_. It doesn’t matter right now. I’m racking up points against me that won’t be cashed in until the end. 

I manage to mirror their grin.

“If I’m getting in trouble, I should make it worth it, hm?” I smile for real, something of my own, at the delight that lights them up—literally.

They contort until they stand—well, hover—in front of me with that air of confidence the real one never has when they’re themself. The biggest sign they’re only a piece of the whole, one with all the power in the world and the confidence to match.  

And zero impulse control.

“Go big or go home, bud.” They clap their hands on my shoulders. “So, we’re going with my idea?”

They’ve been doing that a lot lately. Hanging onto my shoulders. Watching my screens with their head rested on mine. They’ve been bored, I think, with things speeding up a little bit and Connor being in the universe for longer stretches.

The two of them get along. It keeps the splinter out of my hair, which is strange. When I first brought him here, I didn’t think that would happen. Or, I _did_ , it was kind of the _point_. What I didn’t expect was to miss them poking and prodding at me. To be at a loss without their ridiculous ideas driving me to find my own.

I’m not supposed to have friends. I’m _supposed_ to be alone so I can make decisions on what to let happen or not. What makes this work, how will the ripples change how the story ends. To keep the universe together, whether the game is won or lost.

I’ve strayed too far from the rules to go back. I know what waits for me at the end of this road. I accepted that the second I first spoke to Sawyer. I can’t make it better, I certainly can’t make it worse.

After a beat, I nod. “When the time comes.”

“Yes!” 

The splinter rockets into the air and hugs themself tight into a ball of light. They’ll probably zoom around like that for a little bit. They told me it makes it easier to feel things when they lose shape. Emotion, I assume. I never followed that up, it was back when I was trying to ignore them.

I puff out a breath and return my watch to the screen. 

Cross has taken the long way around to the room Sawyer’s still unconscious in. The blacksuit stands guard over them, a dangerous place to be considering how close to the Zoo that is. He probably should have taken them out of there, gotten them somewhere safe.

But, hey, I can’t tell Cube residents what to do.

It looks like Cross has similar feelings on it, though. I don’t know what the blacksuit says to keep Cross from killing him. I’m happy to see him still alive to lift Sawyer off the ground and follow the warden back out of danger.

Relative danger, I guess. Cross doesn’t want them dead yet, it sounds like, but a berserker would see them unconscious on the floor and rip them in half. That’s just how it is.

Something changes. A different taste, sudden and plastic cold. It’s the taste that comes every time, so when I turn I’m not surprised to see the door to the Cube waiting for me.

Damn it, I was about to check on Alfred Furnace.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

The walk from Cross’s office to the room with the elevator is taken in silence. There’s definite sound of attack and struggle, far away and not likely to reach us anytime soon. No resistance.

We tried to keep up a good humor while we were in the office, but that wasn’t really possible. Jokes fizzled and died, what if’s strayed into pessimism. It wasn’t a long stay, just long enough to grab what we needed and bolt.

Well, and for me to hide all of the guns from the office. The last thing I need is a shotgun pointed at me because I left that gun cabinet sit undisturbed. That doesn’t do much to distract me from my _other_ problem.

Cross just let us go.

It’s a good thing, too, with how formulaic I was getting. If he’d wanted to he could have ended this. Sent us all home without even trying.

No more checklists. We’re getting out of here.

When we do get to the final room between us and the elevator, we find a blacksuit with his legs kicked up on his desk and reading a magazine. I didn’t realize they got periodicals down here. I never asked, I guess?

He looks up with a bored frown and has to put the thing down to press a button on the desk. I tense, ready for a fight, until the elevator slides open with a ding. The blacksuit just raises an eyebrow at me and continues reading.

Everyone but me, Alex, and Simon pile into the elevator without waiting for any prompting. That’s all well and good, I guess, but I have a message. Or, a request. I don’t want to call it an order, even though I have a feeling he’s gonna take it that way.

“Hey.”

“Connor.” The suit flips a page. “Ain’t you in a hurry?”

Simon pushes past me on one side, Alex on the other.

“What’s Cross’s game?” Simon demands.

That unimpressed gaze slides up for a moment to touch him. It doesn’t stay there long, back to me next. “No idea.

I open my mouth, but— 

“How can you not know?” Alex butts in next. “You _work_ for him!”

“I really don’t, though.” The blacksuit doesn’t even look away from me, though he does close the magazine and drop it on the desk. “I work for _him._ ”

A beat of silence in which I’m too aware of my friends now staring at _me_. Finally, I don’t think anyone’s gonna interrupt me. “We still have numbers on the outside, right?”

“More’n we got down here.” He jerks his head toward the door back into the compound. The commotion out there remains distant, thank god. “Why?”

“Get word to them if you can.” Not sure how, but I’m sure he’ll figure something out. “To send in some sleepers after the break. Other than that, I trust y’all know what you’re doing from here.”

His bland look sparks up into a standard half-moon smile before he picks his magazine back up. “I like how you think. Better get going before you get caught.”

I dip my head in a nod and turn on my heel to join the others in the elevator.

“What was that all about?” Simon hisses under his breath before we enter. “They _work for you?_ ”

“It’s complicated.”

He growls, but we can’t really put off walking in once Alex shoulders past us with a long-suffering sigh. _He_ already knows, so I guess it’s old news for him.

“What took you so long?” Kevin complains from the back of the car.

“Had one last thing to take care of.” I turn to watch the blacksuit give a lazy salute before he presses that button that closes the door. “Now let’s get the _fuck_ out of here.”

~-S-~

The sound of the siren never leaves me, a distant wail a million miles away.

I move to be sure that I can. I open my eyes and—oh shit. Everything’s black, just _gone._ Am I—no, I raise my hand and it’s still there. It emits a soft light, enough to reassure me.

Where am I?

I sit up and rove my gaze around the darkness. Nothing, as far as the eye can see. Oh it takes me slowly rising to my feet to realize there is a _far_ and that I’m _seeing_ it. It’s not that it’s dark, no, it’s just empty.

The horizon is just a little lighter than the rest of it. What I think are dust motes float through the air. When they get too close I see and feel them for what they are—static.

I turn a full three-sixty and—oh, _hello_. That wasn’t there a second ago.

It’s far out, so distant I only make out a pinprick of light. I swear this is the direction I started facing. I _swear._

I take one step when it smacks me fully in the diaphragm what this is.

I’m _dreaming._

That’s not supposed to happen. I haven’t had a dream since I was cleared to work again. That’s how the nectar works, this _shouldn’t be happening._

I grit my teeth and shake my head. If I’m here, I might as well go with it. With that in mind, I start toward the light. 

It’s a long walk. Everything’s kind of in between one extreme and another here. It’s not warm enough to be _warm_ , not cold enough to be cold. Now that my eyes are adjusted, it’s a tired twilight without a main source of light or a true shadow against the empty landscape.

It’s a boring as fuck dream is what it is. With the garbled siren in the background it’s bordering on annoying, too.

It takes a while for me to get close enough to tell what that light is. When I do, I come to an abrupt halt because—is that a door? It’s still pretty far away, but I think that’s what it is. Something moves in the light.

I forge ahead. I’ll bite, I guess.

After a few steps, a gentle headwind picks up. New, unbalanced unlike the rest of the place, with a pleasant scent riding it. I can’t quite identify it. That’s gonna bother me, I know it.

The breeze doesn’t stay gentle for long. Typical of a dream to let me get close enough to almost taste an answer and not let me get there. It nearly drowns out the siren, the way it whips past my ears.

I lift an arm to push through it. If I’m going to dream, I swear to fucking god I’m going to get to the end of it for once. Here we go, me against my brain, what else is new?

At least it seems like that voice didn’t follow me here.

I breathe out a laugh at the thought. If I’d known getting knocked out would give me a break from it, I’d have done it a week ago.

The whisper of a voice reaches me and all at once—

Summer.

It smells like summer, dust on the air and dead grass. That unmistakable smell that comes whenever the weather stays hot long enough to erase the evidence of the year’s rain. Familiar in a million ways it shouldn’t be, memories I don’t have anymore.

I stumble—oof, yikes, yep, that’s a migraine. I’ll have to report this to Cross. A slip of memory is a big deal. He’ll put me back in the screening rooms. I hope it actually does something this time.

The pain fades down to a soft throb quickly, an unexpected reprieve. When I straighten up with my arms hugged around my middle, the wind has returned to a mere whisper under the sound of the siren. It makes it a little easier to hear the voice and _much_ easier to get close enough to really understand it. I keep a respectable distance away to watch, to listen.

The figure blended right into the door from far away, that’s how close she is to the door. The frazzled puff of hair hides everything from her shoulders up, her clothes rumpled and worn. Her weary lean matches her tone when I manage to decipher her words.

“… gen-pop by now. I have more time to work with them before they meet again,” she says. There must be some kind of response because she barks out a humorless laugh. “Cheating’s the popular trend around here. It doesn’t matter anymore so long as everyone gets out.” 

She waits, head cocked. After a moment, she shakes their head. 

“Don’t worry about it.” She pauses. “Oh, no, I meant that actually. You never said what Jess’s message was, by the way.”

I drift a little closer in a futile attempt to hear the response. Not even a whisper reaches me. Still, she straightens up and anger touches her voice when she speaks again.

“What?”

The other voice is loud enough for me to hear edges of this time. I can’t understand it, even with another couple steps closer.

The figure takes a slow breath and a tight exhale. “You know what? Fine. I’m not about to blame you for it. Tell Jess I’ll get it done and to stop interfering.”

The siren falls silent. I don’t want to think about what that might mean. Either the danger’s over, or… 

“I might not get a chance to talk to you again, so—” the figure shifts and presses both hands against the door. “You know, thanks. Give everyone my best when they get home. Tell them I’m sorry.”

She nods while the other responds, then steps away. The door vanishes the second she lets go of it. It’s weird without that extra light, not that this place needs it. 

She turns around with a weary, heavy sigh and her palms grinding into her eyes. “I can’t believe you didn’t talk to him, that’s a fir—”

She uncovers her eyes. A burst of static flies from them and she stands stock still. 

We stare at each other. She’s so familiar. I can’t wrap my head around it. Too far away to see any details but everything about her screams and catches against the very edges of too many memories. A constant mantra that may as well be in another language for how much I understand it.

After an eternity and after a second she slowly lifts her hands. Before I come to my senses, before I even consider moving, she claps her hands and vanishes. One second here and gone the next.

I spin around just in time for the wind to pick up and knock me off my feet.


	7. Jumping the Tracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read chapters four, five, and six yet go back! There was a three chapter update a few days ago!

~-S-~

I emerge from the dream violently, bolt upright in—in—in Cross’s office? The low light makes it hard to orient myself. It was brighter before, wasn’t it? Right?

“ _Calm down._ ”

I jolt and when I look around I’m relieved to find no one else in the room. No one to see me react to the voice that’s lost the static once laced through its words. The tones still conflict, layers of sound even more unnerving now that they aren’t hidden.

At least the siren’s off now, though I’m not actually sure if that’s a good thing or not. The faint sound of shots fired doesn’t help.

“ _Emergency generators._ ” The voice doesn’t come from behind me this time, further away and to my side. Closer to the desk. “ _That’s the lights, too, by the way._ ”

“What happened?” I ask without really thinking about it. “How did I get here?”

“Now, _you want my input?_ ” Amusement drifts through the air. 

I don’t like that, not in the slightest. If only to avoid having to admit I’m talking to it, I swing my legs off the side of the cot. Standing probably isn’t a great idea yet—that headache from my dream is starting to come back.

“ _This room used to be a lot different, you know,_ ” it says, as if I asked. _The first couple times, the only thing here was this desk. Well. The shitty flag, too, but we don’t talk about that._ ”

There’s a click before I can ask about that. The choice to remain seated leaves my hands when something moves to my right.

Oof, yeah. Head hurts, standing was definitely a bad idea.

I lower hands I hadn’t realized I lifted when I see the hidden door to the security room open wide. I don’t think it was before. Or maybe it was. I’m not exactly at my best right now.

“ _You wanted to know what happened, right?_ ”

The source of the voice moves again. Directly in front of me, now, more distant than ever. It hasn’t done this before—moved from my side, that is. It’s been _cryptic_ like this the whole time. 

Still, I follow it into the security room and have to do a double take at the destruction inside.

Broken glass litters the floor, the case that once held the prison blueprints shattered and its contents nowhere to be seen. A mess of shells spill from an overturned box in the corner of the room, not far from the destroyed and empty case they should be in. Ransacked, everything of use to a possible traitor gone.

“What—”

“ _Check the feed,_ ” the voice says dismissively. “ _I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. Illuminating, even._ ”

I allow myself to stare at the mess for a few more seconds before I shake my head and cross over to the monitors. Just under the last row of them, a thin strip stands out against the panel. I press it in and out pops a drawer with a thin tablet inside.

I fiddle with it for a minute, try to remember the finicky controls, and hesitate. I _could_ just rewind it, but... I glance around and—you know, it kind of makes me nervous not knowing where that voice went. Is it still here?

_How far back?_

A breath right next to my ear is my only warning that it’s right next to me before it speaks. “ _Uh—an hour and six minutes._ ”

I input the times and find that store room on the monitors. The feed starts right when the soldier enters the room, while I was still arguing with the voice in the doorway. I watch the test progress and at the end I have to rewind to watch again.

On the screen, I watch the soldier nearly do it. He almost killed that failure, with me talking, then screaming him through it. So close, he came, but without warning he turned and decked me in the face. The _single_ soldier in the room doesn’t last long against a furious traitor, who fled with his little half-turned friend.

That’s… not what happened. Or, not what I remember, at least.

I remember being frozen, not out of indecision but cold and invasive fear. The voice, impossibly, speaking to that soldier. The two soldiers in the room locked in a fist fight. Pity in his eyes before he somehow knocked me out cold with a single touch.

“ _Ooh, C̡͍̰̄̊̆̇̀̓͐́̐̕͜o̵͍̞̥̞͈͛ͥͯ̐̇͢͞ņ̸̳͎͓̹̲͌̅̊̕n͚ͮ̚͘ö̶̭̗̲͍́r͓̳͈͚̤͊̅͘ should be proud of that edit,_ ” the voice muses. “ _I doubt Cross will notice. Good for you, at least._ ”

I narrow my eyes and rewatch the scene again, slower.

At the end, not long after the two leave the room, a second soldier enters in a blur. He stops at my side and— _there._ A single mis-step, a slight change in the direction he’s facing. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking for it, I’m sure.

I shake my head and watch further at a higher speed. I guess 195 being freed explains the gunshots, Cross not being here. It gives me more of an idea of how bad this is. I don’t slow it down again, though, until the traitor and his pet get to the infirmary.

I stop it to see how he could have possibly ripped three different soldiers out of the nectar’s hold, but I find something else before I get there.

The traitor, the film shows him take down two wheezers without really trying. It makes sense, they aren’t exactly strong, but there’s a second. An instant when he turns away and lifts a scalpel from a tray.

A split second where he turns back, the next he’s a step ahead of where he should be.

The voice tuts next to me. “ _Sloppy._ ”

I’m just gonna move on. I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes, I don’t know how much longer I have.

I try my hardest to find a trick, some method behind it, that he could have used to get those soldiers out of their cots without them turning against him. It’s my fifth time through when I realize. And, really, it’s so simple and it makes so much sense.

He can tap into the unreality of this world, too. He can _do that_. It’s not just me—I’m not the only one with exploits here. _That’s_ how he put me to sleep, _that’s_ how he changed the cameras, and _that’s_ how he did the impossible three times in the infirmary just half an hour before I woke up.

“ _If you’re hung up on that, go another couple minutes to find a real_ doozy.” The voice hums an eery sort of laugh.

I don’t hesitate to follow its instructions. I can worry later about what it wants. About why it’s here. Right now, I’m getting answers to questions I didn’t even realize I should be asking. Questions that would more than likely have Cross ready to put my head on a pike.

Because there he is.

Cross.

Face to face with the traitors, the escapees, the _failures._ There he was, with them having fallen right into his lap, right outside of this very office. He had them. He could have set this whole situation right.

He just let them go.

I don’t say anything. I don’t answer when the voice asks me what I think. I don’t have anything I could say. No words could express the blank, silent wall that has slammed down between myself and my anger.

It explodes in the background, that familiar fire of rage and nectar. It swirls just out of reach. I’ll have to deal with it later, I know, but right now I don’t have time.

I press a button on the tablet to turn the monitors back to real time, where the inmates are rioting back in the upper levels. I watch Cross stride down the hall, not far from the office. He’s on his way back and I’m going to have to put on a good show for him. I can’t be angry, he can’t know I know.

I open the activity log and touch the screen. A small spark leaps from it to my finger as I pull away and all evidence that this has been viewed disappears. That traitor isn’t the only one who can make the records lie, after all.

“ _You deserve to know the truth._ ”

I put the put the tablet back, close the drawer. Once I leave the security room, I don’t know how much longer I really have. It’s long enough, at least, to close the door and return to the little cot. The one, according to the voice, that wasn’t here in some distant part of the past.

I lay down with my head lolled to the side. My gaze sits on the giant flag on the wall. Red, white, Furnace’s logo in the center in thick black lines.

I try to ignore the way it turns my stomach when I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.

♥️♥️♥️ **C** ♥️♥️♥️

I try to ignore the sounds from the elevator shaft while I—I don’t know—try to work a little magic. It would be easier if I could bring that hyper focused fog back. It let me do one thing at a time, kept panic from hitting me too hard. I should have been able to get the doors to open when we first got up here, but _no_.

Sawyer had to give us stupid rules.

Would have been _real nice_ if the suit that had been guarding this room had been on our side, too. Unfortunately, he got a one way ticket out of this universe, his body dumped down the shaft with the rest of the junk in the room.

My current working theory is that the easiest thing I can do—rather than trying to get the door to function in a way it isn’t supposed to—would be to sit between the two airlock doors and try to concentrate enough to flip the switches that open either door. The first one’s easy, as long as I can grasp a thread of thought long enough to do it, but the other…

It’s hard to do something when you can’t see it, okay?

The point is, I’m stuck between the two doors and I’ve been trying to find that second switch while I don’t even have enough concentration to walk out of my body to check.

I hope the others are doing okay in gen-pop. The sound of gunshots has faded by now, not loud enough to drown out the shouts from the _other_ side anymore. You know, the one with blacksuits, dogs, the warden, and _Sawyer_ all trying to kill us.

This isn’t helping.

I take a deep breath. I can do this. I know I can, that’s why I’m sitting here.

I close my eyes and hold a hand out. It takes a second, but I do manage to spark those connections together to get tactile sensation from the other room. Step one, out of the ballpark. I tilt my head this way and that to run my fingers over the control panel, feel all the little buttons and knobs.

Oh, I think that’s it. Two switches right next to each other, small symbols engraved on either side. I bite my tongue and this time I _don’t_ make the mistake I did my first try. I don’t open the door back to the control room.

A siren blares.

I open my eyes to be greeted with dim lights, the open space of gen-pop, and a line of inmates pointing shotguns at me.

Ah.

I raise my hands over my head, though I really don’t think I paint a very intimidating picture as-is. Squinting in the dark, legs crossed on the floor. I’d discarded my jacket back in the control room, so I didn’t even have the full suit they’re used to.

“It’s him!”

Donovan and Zee both rush forward, though those guns don’t lower all that much. Uncertainty, mistrust. It’s fair, I guess.

I heave myself to my feet and meet them at the door with my hands still raised. See? I’m not threat! I just want to get out of here, too!

“That was fast.” Zee peers behind me, obviously relieved at what he sees in the airlock. “What’d you do, ask it nicely?”

I laugh despite myself. All that panic slides away, made even better when Bodie—with a moody Kevin at his heels—stalks up to the line of soldiers and tells them to put the guns down.

“Something like that.” I step back from the two of them and try to gauge the mood. Pretty out of control, beyond those regimented Skulls. “How’s everything out here?”

Actually, it looks a little better than I would expect. There’s a bonfire in the middle of the yard, its smoke warps the giant screen opposite me, a tiny blaze compared to what I recall from past runs. Most inmates mill on the first floor rather than, you know, _rioting_.

Weird.

“Oi, Sawyer!” Bodie calls before either of them can answer, stomping closer. “That is you, right?”

This, at least, is something I can do. I can be companionable with these guys. I genuinely don’t know who here is a person and who’s empty but I also don’t actually care at this point.

So, I grin and wave the other two off. I’m sure they have something to do “Guilty as charged.”

“Good.” He shoots a look at Kevin, who followed him over with a glower. “You sure you couldn’t have left him behind?”

I level a cool gaze at Kevin. He flips me off snaps something pretty rude at me. Huh. Nectar really didn’t help the fact that he’s a huge asshole.

“I’ve got a job for him if you bring me a pickax.” I look back at the doors and size them up. “I might be able to solve one of our problems.”

“Baby Sawyer said that, too.” Bodie notes, though he does send a couple of the inmates that were _totally ready to shoot me_ to go get what I asked for. Also, oof, there really are too many Sawyers around here. “He’s on the elevator, though. You got another idea?”

I shake my head a little. Not really at Bodie, but to clear my head.

“This isn’t to get out. It’ll just buy us some time.” Besides, the _elevator?_ If I can get my brain to work, we won’t have to worry about using picks on it. That and, uh. If we’re lucky enough that we have control of the Black Fort already.

“Sounds good to me.” Bodie slings a grin at me and shouts to the other inmates. They disband back into the disarray. He follows them without another look at me.

Kevin goes to follow, but I grab his arm.

“Hey, mister big, bad, _former_ gang leader.” I ignore the look he gives me at that. “As much as I hate giving you a real weapon, I actually do have something for you to do.”

“Skulls are _mine,_ ” he growls. He doesn’t try to go anywhere when I release him, though.

One of the Skulls runs up with an ax. He makes himself scarce once I take it, which makes this a lot easier.

I shove the ax into Kevin’s arms. “Make sure this door can’t close.”

He opens his mouth, perfectly on brand to argue without thinking, but then he actually looks at the pickax. Then the door. After a second, he recovers into a devilish smile made worse by what the warden did to all of us.

He doesn’t wait long before heading for the door.

That’s one problem taken care of.

I shake my head and skirt the edges of the yard. I catch a few glares, but most of them fade into vacant stares. Is that Virtuoso letting them act like that? Or is it just Sawyer? I wish I’d asked more questions before I let them cut me off.

Either way, I hope that distraction makes this easier.

When I get to the elevator, it’s Simon I find with his pick buried in between the elevator doors. Along with another inmate, he’s made a handy little divot I should be able to get my fingers between. Rad.

“Connor.” Simon drops his pick and wipes his hands on his overalls while he comes to meet me. “We’ve been killing time, but please tell me you have a plan other than ‘wait for the berserkers to get here.’”

“I have plan,” I assure him in a tired deadpan. “You might not like it, taking history into account.”

He does not look assured at all by that.

So, the original plan. All those little boxes on that checklist. 

We’re supposed to wait. Keep everyone hidden in the trough room until Furnace sends berserkers down to rip us apart. With four of us about as strong as Alex was back then—stronger, actually, since none of us have been shot and we have a hefty supply of nectar—it wouldn’t be hard to win that fight.

I manage to get the Skulls to clear away. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I look like a blacksuit or the look on my face—it feels neutral, but I sincerely doubt I’m not scowling right now. They just fuck off and leave a pick stuck firmly in the little hole they’ve managed to make.

We wait.

I assess it. Run my hands over the ax handle. Someone makes a disgruntled, irritated sound when I jerk it out of the hole and the doors settle back to their resting position. They hadn’t made enough progress to even see a crack, though, so they’d better not get pissy with me about it.

We _waste time_ we could spend getting as far from the prison as possible.

With that done, the tool on the ground, and full access to the doors, I feel around that hole in the middle of them. It’s a little small, but I can still get a pretty good grip on both doors if I really try.

So, you know. Fuck the original plan, right?

“You had better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”

I barely turn my head to find Alex right at my side. Ha, too focused on a goddamn door to hear him coming. The rest of the group sans Kevin have all gathered back with Simon. They don’t look all that focused on what we’re doing, so I’ll assume Alex didn’t share his realization with the class.

“I’m _pretty sure_ it’ll be fine.”

Like, seventy-five percent sure. I’m not gonna say that number out loud, though, because it won’t be good enough.

“Uh huh.” He looks neither convinced nor impressed. “If you’re wrong?”

I shrug and turn back to the elevator. “Then I’ll see you when you get home. You guys can do this.”

I have a feeling I’ll have to do this before Alex can physically stop me. Not much time, then.

I draw on the spite, the determination to prove that I do know what I’m doing, actually. I press that into the doors, the point where my hands meet them. It takes some effort, a soft ‘please,’ and maybe ten seconds.

Then I stand between the open doors with a hand on either one. I hold my breath and stare into the barrel of a remotely controlled machine gun on the roof of the car.

It whirs to life.

_Shit._

In a suspended moment, I kind of come to peace with the idea of having called this wrong. At being done here, going home. It’ll hurt. I’ll probably hate myself more than anything when I get back, but I’ll be _done._

The gun doesn’t shoot. Its barrel twists a circle and, _thank god._ If it wasn’t one of ours out there, I’d be a fucking stain on the floor of the yard. After a couple figure eights, it jerks up a few times in an obvious gesture.

“Alright, first group!” I call through grit teeth. Yeah, that shot of adrenaline is making it a little hard to keep these doors from crushing me like a soda can. “Guys, Bodie, y’all had better get your asses in here.”

A good number of inmates crowd in, and I feel kinda bad. The Skulls weren’t exactly ready to play security on this, so uh. Yeah. Bodie gets in, so do the rest of my group, but I don’t think I’m gonna fit. I’m not about to tell anyone to get the fuck out either, though.

I squint to make sure Zee has that sack of nectar before I grunt what really should be a sigh.

“Okay, that’s cool I guess.” I wheeze. A couple people start talking at once but I shout over them as well as I can. “I’ll just take the next one!”

I step back and let the doors close. There’s a moment’s pause where I have to hold back the fear that I might have actually just made a mistake. Another one. Why are they still listening to me, again?

A low rumble comes from the other side of the door and a cheer comes up in the crowd when we hear the elevator start up with a groan. A few inmates slap me on the back, then the Skulls shoo me out of the way so they can start figuring out who goes on the next ride up. It takes maybe fifteen seconds of a stare at the guy who’s taken charge for him to decisively declare that I’m one of them.

It’ll be a few minutes, though, so take a few steps away from the crowd to take a goddamn breather. I’m ready to never see this prison again—for real this time. I’m looking forward to maybe being able to, like, sit down for a few minutes.

_I’ll be fine in just a minute._

I have more than enough practice at bringing the nectar to heel when it roils up at the flash of Nick. I just have to keep telling myself he’s home, he’s okay, he’s _fine._

I choke on a ragged breath when the giant screen over the elevator doors flickers to life. It takes a few tries for the circuits to catch, to show us the picture.

It’s the warden. Gunshots sound from the background, even if his office seems fairly calm and in control. Instead of sitting directly in front of that creepy flag he’s got on his wall, he has the camera angled so we can see a good chunk of the room.

The phone, now on its own stand rather than the place on his desk it used to have.

The stretch of wall that, really, kind of obviously looks like a hidden door now that I know it hides the security room.

And Sawyer, on a cot up against the other wall. No scowl, no anger in sight—they’re still _asleep_. I don’t know if Cross decided to show them to dishearten me or what, but this is honestly the best news I’ve gotten all day. It even beats not getting turned to ground meat by a machine gun.

Then Cross smiles, devoid of anything that should come with a smile, and every trace of that relief vanishes.

“Well.” He leans closer to the camera, which gets all the inmates to skitter further away from the screen. “I do hope you’re having fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really out here posting at 10:45pm. And like five days after a three chapter update, too!
> 
> Should be one or two chapters left, depending on how long these scenes end up being. There are less than 2k words left in the original draft, so...


End file.
